The present invention relates to an image-forming device and, more particularly, to an image-forming device such as a copying machine and a printer, which can form an image on a rewritable image recording medium. The present invention also relates to an image-forming method.
Conventionally, most image recording media, such as thermal recording paper and plain paper for a plain paper copier (PPC) used for an image forming device such as a copying machine and a printer, have not been able to be reused because an image cannot be deleted once the image is recorded thereon.
Therefore, resources such as forest resources used to make paper for such media have been wasted, causing problems such as environmental damage and loss of earth resources.
In order to solve the above problems, an image forming device using reusable and reversible image recording media has been proposed, wherein an image recorded on an image recording medium is deleted and another image can be recorded.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 5-58033 has disclosed an image forming device using a reversible thermosensitive recording medium, which can rewrite an image with heat, and JP-A No. 2001-301233 has disclosed an image forming device using rewritable display recording medium which can rewrite an image with light.
However, image deterioration tends to occur in the above conventional rewritable media when they are repeatedly used. Thereby, in order to obtain suitable image quality, it has been necessary to select writing conditions suitable for the characteristics of each image recording medium. Moreover, there are cases where a predetermined level of image quality is not obtained even under adjusted writing conditions, such as when the image recording medium is repeatedly used more than a certain number of times, and, in such a case, it is determined that the image recording medium is no longer usable.
In the case of an image forming device using conventional image recording media such as thermal recording paper and paper for a PPC, the image recording medium has typically been used only once. There has been no concept that the image quality deteriorates and the medium becomes unusable, and only components of the main body of the image forming device become unusable. Accordingly, management against the deterioration of the image quality and unusable components has been comparatively easy.
However, in the case of the image recording medium which can be repeatedly rewritten, there has been a problem in that it is difficult to maintain excellent image quality because there are different use histories for each image recording medium. This causes complications in the setting of the optimal image recording conditions and difficulties in determination of the end of the service time for the image recording medium.